


Such Stuff as Dreams

by Roaoai



Category: The Tempest (2010)
Genre: But it's good too, Other, This may be odd, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7646101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roaoai/pseuds/Roaoai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were two halves of a coin, divided, he the cold and heavy storm and she, the dry and whipping wind. They were two halves of a coin divided, and their reunion was long delayed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is oddly written, in a play-type format. It normalizes into prose in the next chapter, I promise.

And now, Does the vast production end?  
The posturing, the playing of roles?  
Are we free to go about again,  
Set loose of their mortal toils?  
Prospera, sweet Miranda, do sail on,  
But what of Ariel? Is he at last free?  
Or will the enslaving witch make him gone  
And keep him bound and far from me?  
We were once a single coin, halved,  
He the cold and heavy storm and I,  
I the hot and desert wind that parched the earth  
And carried the sand. But no more.  
For Sycorax bound him, and try though I did,  
My charms were not enough to unfold her curse.  
And then came Prospera! Freedom! Hope!  
And a bright-eyed child to follow me  
All the way unto his the tree.  
She promised to keep him but a year,  
But no mortal children grew so far in only a single year  
I know not how long he has obeyed,  
For time is like water, fleeting and rippling  
I wonder if he wonders of me.

Footsteps from Stage Left, Miranda enters. Ariel from Stage Right, stays hidden.

Mir. : Are you yet here, friend of my youth?  
Will you come with us now,   
To this new land of beautiful men?

Fae. : Does your mother hold her staff?  
Do her books join your procession?  
(Aside) Does she yet keep Ariel?

Mir. : She has made no mention of them,  
But she walks without aid,  
And seems frailer than before.  
Though also happier.

Fae. : It gladdens my heart, to have this news  
And I thank you sweetest child.  
Permit me ask one thing more?

Mir. : Gladly I will answer it.

Fae. : How long has passed since first we met?   
Since I took your hand and guided you  
From your mothers cell into the trees?

Mir. : It has been, oh, one summer? Not two, surely.

Fae. : Thank you dear friend,   
For our time together shows  
Humanity is truer than ever I hoped.

Mir. : Shall you come with us, then?  
Come away from this island prison?

Fae. : I need no ship to sail,  
But tis to Milan you go?  
I’ll follow, surely, and see thy wedding through.

Mir. : You have some business here?  
I see something weighs on you.

Fae. : A friend I fear I’ve lost.  
But do not worry for me,   
You have all of the world open at your feet!  
Go and taste it’s sweetnesses.

Mir. : I shall miss you, when I am gone.

Fae. : And I you.

Miranda exeunt.

Fae. : No staff, no book, so then shall Ariel be free?

Ariel : Free, in all his quality.


	2. Chapter 2

He was so pale, nothing like the dark, wild figure with lightning in his hair that she remembered from their first meeting. He had never been bound, then, had known nothing of mankind or their affections. He was passionate, untamed, blowing up storms and silencing them at a whim. She had never been that. She was driven, powerful, unstoppable in her path, sand whipping into her skirts and filling the sky.   
Sycorax had tasted her power, as she blew past her desert, heading for the sea.  
The witch had desired it, knowing she was with child and that such thing would ease her way.

They had met, crashing into one another with rumbles of thunder, twisting in the air as they learned of each other. He tasted like salt and ozone, like danger and difference and the wide, empty seas. 

And then there was a voice, calling from so far away, but he turned, curious, and sank to the waves. There stood the Witch, Sycorax, her face flushed with youth and joy. She hung back, but was loathe to leave his side. When her feet made of the sands touched the earth, the Witch spoke.

Solidity itched. It burned under her newfound skin, aching and cloying. He tried to fly, to flee back to his clouds and his seas, but he could not make his feet move.  
“Tell me your names.” And the voice, oh the voice, it was sweet and soft and eased that itching in her skin.  
“Ariel.” His voice tasted like winter and storm, like power. It made her wish to fly.  
“Ellat.” She wondered what they heard in her.

They served her faithfully in Algiers, but the town was uneasy with them. Sycorax would not speak of where she had found her two slaves, with their wary expressions and dark eyes. She would merely laugh when asked, the way she did when they asked about her growingly clear pregnancy.   
Finally, in the dark of the night, they grew tired of the witch and her secrets. Five men, their faces wrapped so she would not know who to curse, forced them aboard the boat. One, his eyes full of lust, had tried to have the girl slave, the others laughing. Laughing, until a hot, dry wind blew up around them and the one who had been trying fell back, his palm burned where it had touched her.   
They did not try to touch the slaves again, not even as she fell ill on the waves. The three were left on the island. As they rowed away, the men swore they saw the two slaves change, becoming incorporeal, their eyes glinting in the darkness.

Ariel worried. He knew little of humanity, save the voyagers who dared his seas. Few were women, fewer were with child. He knew nothing of what to do when his Mistress began crying out, yelling demands at them. Ellat set to work beside him, and belatedly he followed. Taking her hand, though it felt that she would break him, and cooling her brow as much as he could. And then he worried. His Mistress screamed below him, and then there was an answering cry, one that held none of the rasp and honey of Ellat ’s words.  
Her hands shook gently, solidified wind supporting the blood-covered child.  
And he could taste it, the earth and brimstone that ran in the Halfling child’s blood as Sycorax took up her first child with a sigh of satisfaction.   
“What is it?” He asked, feeling ill.  
“Caliban.”


	3. Chapter 3

The thing was walking when his Mistress called on him alone. Her son was left in Ellat’s unwilling hands, while Sycorax walked with him.  
Then she made a demand he could not obey.  
She desired another child. A child of sea and storm made flesh, a brother to Caliban.  
And he could not.  
He would, to please her, if he could. But he did not physically know how, and there was no-one from whom he could learn. If she released him to go to shore, he begged, he would return within the day.  
He had never seen her so angry. Her rage burned and twisted within his skin, and the simple look in her eyes forced him back, into the tree behind him. It twisted, wringing the air from him in a cry, and his mistress turned her back on him.

Ellat knew something was wrong when Sycorax returned, breathing too fast, her eyes sharp with rage. She knew something was wrong, but Caliban had buried a hand in her hair, and she would not receive an answer. So, later, once they both lay asleep, she crept away from the cell.  
It did not take long to find the tree where Ariel was bound, gasping for breath even as the wood did not allow any. She raised a hand, to try and free him, her confidant and friend, when a thought occurred.   
Sycorax had placed him here. She would know if he were to be released. Instead, she pressed her form to the tree, pushing power into it, trying to make the wood softer, to let him breathe. He gasped, panting, and called out piteously when she backed away, begging her to return, to free him, saying that he would try to please her.  
Ellat returned to her mistress, eyes burning in the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

Time had never been something she knew. Day and night seemed to pass fluidly, with no real relation to her. Caliban grew, spoke, argued with his mother about the most useless of things. Throughout it all, Ariel begged her to return to him.   
She waited for the time.  
Finally, finally the day came. It had not rained in a fortnight, and her mistress had commanded her to go and fetch water from the stream. As she left, Sycorax demanded that she keep an eye on Caliban as well.  
Ellat returned, eyes downcast, and placed the water beside the Witch, weakened with her thirst. She was so parched, she did not taste the sweet root in the water, not until it was too late.

When Caliban returned, he found his mother’s body lying prone on the earth, still as if sleeping, but her eyes lay open and glazed. He looked for Ellat, for answer, but the spirit was gone.  
He buried his mother, wailing all the while. Then, he went and searched for her, anger growing steadily in him.   
She was nowhere to be found, and in desperation, in a need to lash out at something, he went to Ariel’s tree, fire at his hands.  
And there he found her, wind whipping at her hair, black sand from the beach swirling around her.  
They did not speak. He could see the unrepentant hate on her face, and the anger that Sycorax’s dying request protected him. 

Everything hurt. Ariel had not moved, could not move more than that one breath of air would allow. He wondered, some days, why his mistress had given him that gift if she intended to leave him bound for the rest of days.


	5. Chapter 5

Ellat did not trust Prospera when she came to the island, though she laughed and crowed when Caliban was made to serve as she had.  
She was interested, however, in Miranda. The only child she had ever seen before was Caliban, but this girlchild was nothing like him. She was sweet, obedient, with bright eyes that had never seen the world.   
Ellat waited, and watched. She waited until, at the longest last, Miranda explored on her own. She had sung to the girl as the Milanese Witch worked her magic and made her plans. Miranda knew her voice, by now.  
“I know you’re there.” Ellat froze. “The air is warmer when you are near. May I see you?” Slowly, uncertain, remembering the pain of her binding, Ellat walked into view.  
“What do you see?” She asked, quietly.  
“You are beautiful.” Miranda breathed, wonder on her face. If Ellat could flush she would.  
“May I show you something?” The girl nodded, and took her hand. 

Prospera found her later that day, curled asleep in the roots of the most tragic tree the older woman had ever seen. Gently, she woke her daughter and sent her back to the cell, before studying the thing before her. She could feel the binding there, made in haste to be strong, so also inflexible. One push in just the right place and…  
There was a groan, and a slim, pale figure fell to his knees at her feet, babbling as quickly as he could. Begging her for mercy.  
“What shall I call you?” She asked quietly, and he flinched backwards, crouched to the earth, terror in his eyes. He began to shake his head, to refuse, and she smiled.  
“One year is all I ask, spirit. Or would you rather return to the tree?” He crawled forwards, beautiful eyes locked on hers until his hands rested on her feet.  
“My name is Ariel, Master.”   
If Prospera had looked up, just then, she would have seen Ellat’s horrified expression.


	6. Chapter 6

She had not meant this. She had not meant to have him freed only to bind him back again. She had thought that a mother to something as sweet as Miranda would not use her friend so. But Ariel seemed happy in service.   
More than a hundred times she tried to take to the skies, to fly where she willed and return to her wide deserts, to draw her shapes in the sand.  
But the waters were too deep, and sucked the heat from her as she tried. She was as much a slave on the isle as he.   
Then came storm, and ruin, and Ariel was free to do as he pleased. It was glorious to watch. And she hid from him as he returned to shore, as had become her habit.

Ariel wondered what had happened while he had been in that tree. What awful fate Ellat had been twisted to by the witch before she died. He’d searched the island end over end, when not given to another task, but could find no feeling of her. He even dallied in the dry places as long as he’d dared, hoping to see her on the horizon. The heat had beaten into him until he could practically feel her beside him, but she was not there. In the darkest nights, he set himself to imagining the worst thing that could have happened.   
What if she’d been bound to a shell, thrown into the ocean to be carried to the deeps? What if Ellat’s heat lay deep under the water, seeping away in the cold? What if she’d been destroyed completely… But no. He would have felt if she had been bound, even from his pine. So she was still free and present. But what if she had simply flown home, forgotten about him and Sycorax? What then? He worried at the problem every moment he could, hoping to wear it down, to find some sign that he was not alone on the island.  
Ellat was nowhere to be found on the island, no trace of her present to his touch, not even in his Master’s cell where she’d woven magics for Sycorax often. Either she was gone, bound and twisted and hurting, or she was hiding herself from him every moment he searched for her. So, instead of pulling up the salt winds and crying for her from the treetops, he began to hide, also.   
Now, he began to sense her. She spun along the beaches in the coarse black sand, sighing to herself and singing listlessly. Once, Miranda had come to sit on the beach, and the two had spoken together for a time, Ellat’s sweet voice a relief to hear.   
He began to wonder then, why she had not released him from the pine. Why his Mistress had given him that single, sweet breath of air. Why Miranda knew her face, but Prospera seemed not to. Why Caliban still lived. He’d never had so many ‘whys’ before coming here.   
It was not until he observed the men Prospera brought for her revenge that another idea occurred.   
Guilt.


	7. Chapter 7

They watched the ships leave the shore, he in hiding and she in worry. Then, with an angry yell, she threw herself into the air, hurtling out over the water with all the speed she could manage, barely making it a league before being forced back by the cold. Exhausted, enraged, she collapsed back to the sand, soaking in it’s heat as she recovered, swirling the sands into a vortex around her.  
And he could wait no more.  
Gently, he let himself drop the form Sycorax had given him, brewing up a storm in the clouds above. He felt her surprise, uncertainty, fear, and met them with his exuberance, his freedom, his joy. They met now with no crashing of thunder, but with a sigh.  
She showed, more than told him, of her years spent waiting, of her last order, of her use of Prospera’s daughter, and of that one gift, the only gift she could give while Sycorax held their chains.   
Then, gently, he gathered her up, so much smaller now than she had been, and carried her to the closest beach he knew of in Milan. On their arrival, she was nothing more than a wisp clutched close in his hands, but the sands were hot and dry, and the lonely winds welcomed her happily.


	8. Chapter 8

Prospera was fading, she knew she was, she could feel her strength drain with each passing day. It had begun, she thought, with the breaking of her staff, but though she withered, she could not remember a time with more joy.  
Miranda, sweet child, glowed in the new world, drinking it in with bright enthusiasm. Though she still thought men the most beautiful beings she’d ever seen, she wondered too at the things their hands had made, the beasts they tamed. Everything new was wonderful and there seemed to be nothing she missed from the island.   
At least, nothing she would tell her mother about. There were times when she would withdraw, refusing company gently in favour of sitting alone to stare at the sun, or down at the beach. Prospera wondered what she was thinking at those times, but not even her betrothed could get her to speak of it. She would simply return, a little sadder than before, until some new wonder was found to fascinate her.  
Prospera was worrying over it when she felt something unusual. An odd sort of tingling, the kind you’d feel right before a lightning strike, shivering up her back. Turning, she found the source of the feel, a pair of nobility standing by one of the long windows. Curious, she went to the herald at the door and asked about them.  
“They and the Lord and Lady of the Isle of Winds, Lady Duchess.” He spoke respectfully, but not without a bit of confusion. “Their names are on the guest list for the wedding.” She thanked him and wandered on, keeping them in her periphery. He felt familiar, although he looked like any of the other normal young lords who had arrived as the Prince’s friends. A bit bookish perhaps, less active, but nothing outstanding. Not until she caught sight of their faces did she know who had arrived, for both had dark, almost black, eyes and a sort of beauty to them that she knew. Ariel, her sweet Ariel, free of mortal binding, present, strong, and powerful.


	9. Chapter 9

A physical shape did not itch if she chose to wear it, Ellat found, and dressing herself was fun, oddly. She’d been able to see Ariel’s uncertainty when she asked this, but he was enjoying the time as well. The locals kept commenting on the usually warm and balmy weather for the time of year, but she held her peace. It would not be grey nor dreary on her friend’s wedding day.   
As it approached she found her nerves growing. Miranda seemed so happy here, yet her silent spells were increasing, worrying the court. There was much talk, most of it nonsense, but some feared homesickness the cause.  
Finally, the night before, Miranda shut herself away entirely, barricading herself in her room, and Ellat decided it was past time that they speak.   
So, shedding her skin, she flipped up to sit on the girl’s window sill, stirring the dust there gently. The human sat there, her eyes bright with unshed tears as she stared unseeing at the sunset.   
“You should not look too long,” Ellat said after a time, startling Miranda, “Unless you’ve seen all you wish to of the world?” She resolved into the room, wearing her old face and smiling gently.   
”You came!” Miranda cried, throwing herself at the fae, “I was worried you were trapped there, but you came!” She was crying now, sobbing into the seeming-solid shoulder nigh uncontrollably.   
“Of course I did.” Ellat replied, stroking her hair gently.

She left shortly after, and Miranda returned to the reception much improved. She apologized to all present for her vanishing, and was so much better that even Prospera seemed mollified. When Ellat rejoined the court, Ariel could feel the heat radiating from her.   
It was not until the reception that Miranda recognized her friend’s new form. The Lord and Lady of the Isle of Winds were presented to the new-wedded couple, and Miranda cried out a little on seeing them, rushing rather undecorously out to catch up the Lady’s hands.  
“You are beautiful!” She nearly whispered, as the Lord smiled and greeted her new husband, who was looking more perplexed by the moment.

They left after that, taking again to the air and winging their way back to the land of her birth. She carried him across the deserts to show him the lush oasis that hid in the hills. They bade a brief farewell at the shore and both were on their ways once again.   
And as she whipped over her deserts, pulling the sand into her skirts, the small, dark people waved up to her. Some, the oldest, even called her name to welcome her home.


End file.
